


The Curly Angel Method

by ticketybye



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Fluff, Hair, Hair Washing, Intimacy, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Softie Crowley (Good Omens), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 12:30:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19946212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ticketybye/pseuds/ticketybye
Summary: "Angel?""Yes, dear?""Your hair is dry."





	The Curly Angel Method

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [打理天使卷发的方法](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19987507) by [amazingwoods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amazingwoods/pseuds/amazingwoods)



“Angel?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Your hair is dry.”

“Dry?”

Crowley gestures vaguely in the general direction of Aziraphale’s hair, precariously holding a glass of Pinot. He very nearly spills it. “Yeah… I mean, it looks good, don’t get me wrong,” he slurs, “I’m just saying it looks thirsty.”

“Thirsty.”

“Ye-yeah, like it needs moisture.”

Aziraphale stares, perplexed. Moisture? Crowley stands abruptly and staggers toward him. He leans forward to inspect his hair, ruffling it to prove a point. “Yeah, I mean, look at this. Straw. And it’s such a shame, angel, your curls have got _such_ potential.”

“Crowley, I’m lost. I have no idea what you’re going on about.”

“Well, what do you use?”

“For what?”

“In your hair. Product.”

Aziraphale soundlessly opens and closes his mouth. “I… nothing, I don’t use anything.”

“What?” Crowley tilts his head, his shock plain to see even behind his dark glasses. Aziraphale feels something akin to shame warm his cheeks, though he knows, rationally, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Ethereal beings don’t _style_ their hair. Crowley leans down again and sniffs his face and neck, like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do. “But you use cologne.”

Aziraphale swallows, the dangerous combination of Crowley’s physical closeness and wine starting to make him uncomfortable. “Well, I go to the barber every once in a while,” he says, eyes fixed into his own almost-empty glass, “I liked the cologne he recommended, and I bought it, and it just seemed such a waste not to use it. But it’s just, you know. It’s not like I need any of it. I miracle myself, um… clean, and everything.”

“Oh,” Crowley nods, then plops back onto the couch and takes another sloppy gulp of wine. “I don’t know about that barber, then.”

Aziraphale shrugs. “I mostly do it for the hot towel shave and the sake of it. He cuts my hair very short, it doesn’t agree with me. I miracle it longer afterwards.”

“Well, trust me on this, with miracles… it’s not the same.”

“No?”

“Nah.” Crowley shakes his head. “The human way just has that special _something_. Like with food and clothes.”

Aziraphale considers him for a moment. His coiffed, shiny, effortlessly stylish hair. It makes him a little sad, makes him feel a little boring and unkempt in comparison. Well – not just Crowley’s hair, his general appearance and attitude and existence. It isn’t envy that Aziraphale feels, exactly, it's something else that he hasn’t been able to identify. Something about admiring and wanting to be admired in return. Suddenly he thinks of all the hairstyles Crowley’s changed through the ages, and of all the compliments he’s had to wash down with various beverages. Why would Crowley open this can of worms now, he wonders.

Crowley’s tipsy mumble brings him back to reality. “I could do your hair.”

“What?”

Crowley shrugs. He’s taken off his glasses, and is staring at him with an interested, expectant look. “If you wanted, I mean, I could do your hair. I’m quite good at it.” His eyes glint with the hint of a smile, _that_ smile that Aziraphale knows to mean temptation and wiling. Aziraphale side-eyes him with suspicion.

Crowley chuckles. “It’s just shampoo and styling products, angel,” he says, amused. “I’m not trying to seduce you.”

Aziraphale feels his face flush hot. “Oh, no, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t _suggest_ …” he stammers.

“Aziraphale. Angel. Chill. Let me do it once, and see if you like it. Those curls are _begging_ for it, I’m telling you.”

Aziraphale thinks of the parts of him that _have been_ begging and cannot hold back a small, tired smile. He gives in. “Alright,” he nods, “let’s do this your way.”

Crowley’s treacherous smile widens. “Good. Hold on a second.” He grimaces and groans, sobering up.

“What, are we doing it _now_?”

“Don’t see why not. Not sleepy.”

Aziraphale feels suddenly panicky. How are they going to go about this, and where? Somehow, he would have felt safer doing this during the day. Crowley looks around and strokes his chin. “Right, do you have a bathroom?”

“Yes, upstairs, but Crowley…” Aziraphale doesn’t feel ready, or remotely drunk enough, for this to happen now.

“Right, let’s go. Don’t bother sobering up, I did it because I need to focus, but I’m thinking we could bring the rest of the wine upstairs and you can drink it in the tub.”

At this point, all air has deserted Aziraphale’s superfluous lungs, and his mouth feels impossibly dry. “ _In_ the tub…? I’m… Crowley, surely you don’t want to…?”

“Look, it’s the easiest way, you’d be uncomfortable bending over the sink. Stop fretting, I’ll miracle so many bubbles I won’t even be able to see anything.”

“Oh _Lord_. It’s too late to back down, isn’t it?”

“I’m not forcing you, angel, I’m just saying there’s no reason to be nervous. And besides, it’s nothing that I haven’t seen before.”

Aziraphale is about to embark on a spiel about how social customs change the connotation of certain gestures, and therefore that him taking a bath in front of Crowley is _not_ the same as them going to the public baths together in ancient Rome, but decides to bite his tongue and just go with the flow, as they say. Protesting will just make everything more awkward than it is.

He silently leads the way. His bathroom is Baroque-style and, like many other things in his life, indulgent – the ornate bathtub, the oversized mirror, the candles, the fluffy carpet. Crowley strokes the floral-patterned tiles, lets out a quiet gasp. Aziraphale turns to look at him, waiting for a snarky comment on clutter that never comes. Crowley looks impressed, rather: “this bathroom’s got _style_ , angel. Not my style, but I can see what you were doing here.”

Crowley stretches his hands out and miracles a perfectly warm, light pink bubble bath. A few hair products appear on the floor next to the bathtub. “Alright, do your thing and get in, I’m going to grab you a drink. More wine? Honestly, I was thinking champagne. Fits the general mood, doesn’t it?”

Aziraphale shifts his weight from side to side, paralyzed by fear, and decides some liquid courage can only help. “Sure, anything works.”

As soon as Crowley leaves the room, Aziraphale miracles away his clothes and rushes to get into the water. Crowley was right, the bubbles do cover him up entirely. He allows himself a moment to enjoy the warmth and smell and – wait. The soap smells distinctly of _Crowley_ : sandalwood, vanilla, some stronger spices Aziraphale can’t recognize. Something shifts pleasantly in Aziraphale’s chest. The water feels like an embrace, Crowley all over and around him. _As he always is_ , a stray thought intervenes, but Aziraphale puts it back where it came from.

Crowley comes back with two flutes of champagne, hands one to Aziraphale and sits down on the carpet. He clinks their glasses, smiling with a fondness he isn’t bothering to hide behind alcohol or shades, for once. “To good hair days,” he says. Aziraphale smiles hesitantly in return and takes a sip.

Crowley puts his glass aside, kneels and comes closer. He grabs the shower hose. “Right, careful with the glass now,” he says, and rinses Aziraphale’s hair. He takes the shampoo – a sleek, black, expensive-looking bottle – and dilutes it in a plastic cup. It has never occurred to Aziraphale that one should dilute shampoo. Aziraphale sits upright and brings his knees to his chest in anticipation, then takes another sip of the champagne, an excellent vintage he is sure wasn’t in the shop last time he checked.

Finally, Crowley pours the shampoo into his hair, and starts working it in at the scalp with slow, circular motions. Crowley’s fingers are skilled and firm, but delicate at the same time. They move smoothly from the crown of Aziraphale’s head, to his temples, to his nape, and back again. Aziraphale all but melts into the touch. He didn’t expect it to feel this good. It’s like Crowley is scratching an itch he didn’t know he had. He struggles and fails to hold back a low moan. Crowley stops abruptly. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, yes. More than okay,” Aziraphale manages, already missing those talented hands, “please, keep going.”

Crowley does. Though Aziraphale knows washing someone’s hair is a perfectly innocent thing to do, he feels like he is committing multiple mortal sins. There’s something absolutely indecent in the way Crowley’s fingers press into the base of his skull, slide along the back of his ears, comb through the longer locks at the top of his hair in a gentle caress. He has become _boneless_ , and he has to miracle his glass away before he drops it.

It goes on for minutes, hours perhaps; Aziraphale is in a state of suspended consciousness and wouldn’t be able to tell. At some point, Crowley’s voice reaches him as from afar. “Angel,” he whispers, “how long has it been?” The second part of the question, _since anybody’s touched you_ , is unnecessary. Aziraphale knows what Crowley's asking. He doesn’t even attempt to regain composure, replies with his eyes still closed, still leaning into Crowley’s touch.

“A good while.”

“Figured,” Crowley mumbles.

“And you…?”

“Same. Pretty much.”

“I wouldn’t have thought.”

“How so?”

“You touch me.” Aziraphale swallows. “Sometimes.”

Crowley chuckles, a tad bitterly. “It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m used to touch, just not the good kind, you know, the kind you would go looking for. Not a lot of people I’d touch willingly, down there.”

“No humans?”

“Nah, not my thing. Thought you would.”

Aziraphale shakes his head. “Too complicated. Someone’s bound to get hurt. And besides, I’m not one to take initiative.”

“Heaven not a touchy-feely bunch?”

Crowley is rinsing his hair. Aziraphale feels all the muscles in his body tense at the mention of Heaven, a familiar lump form in his throat. He shakes his head. “Not really. Not since… well. You know.”

“What, the Fall?”

Crowley is facing him now, has squeezed some white fluffy cream into his palm and is rubbing his hands together. “This is conditioner, by the way. It’ll help keeping the frizz under control.”

Aziraphale nods. “Yes, the Fall. I don’t know how much you remember from Before, but, well…”

“Oh yeah.” Crowley starts massaging the conditioner into his hair, and his face is so close Aziraphale could count his long, dark eyelashes. “I remember _some_ things. I remember lots of touching. Did it change much?”

“Yes, I think… we never talked about it, but things changed, even among those of us who stayed.” Aziraphale keeps his eyes down, can’t bear to look at Crowley in the eye. There’s something so painfully intimate about the way Crowley is taking care of him, lingering in the places where his skin meets his hair. It’s too gentle, too charged. It makes him want to curl up and disappear; it makes him feel too many things at once. Embarrassment, despair, longing for something lost, an extraordinary amount of love. _It’s not about the hair_ , Aziraphale thinks suddenly, and then, _it was never about the hair and you knew it_. He keeps talking, just to keep himself grounded. “The general feeling, I think, was that if some of us had been capable of betrayal we were no longer allowed to trust each other like before. Well – only trust to a certain point. Letting someone _touch_ you… it’s an act of deep trust, isn’t it?”

There. He looks up and meets Crowley’s inscrutable eyes. “We need to leave it in for a few minutes.” Crowley mutters, then draws back, rinses his hands in the bathwater, seems lost in thought for a second. “Remember preening?” He asks, suddenly, with a sad little smile.

Aziraphale’s chest aches at the memory. “Oh, yes.” How could he forget: the familiarity, the comfort of it. It had physically hurt to stop doing it, in the beginning.

“I thought you guys would keep doing it,” Crowley says. He’s resting his head on the edge of the bathtub, absent-mindedly tracing S shapes in the water with his fingertips. He looks awfully down, and lonely, in a way. “Thought it was just part of our punishment.”

“No, no, no more preening for anyone, I’m afraid.”

“ _We_ should do it. At some point.”

An inquisitive “hmm” is all that Aziraphale can muster.

“If you ever feel like it. I remember it feeling good. I miss it, sometimes. Though, you know, it’s been ages and I’m used to doing it on my own.”

“I’d like to.”

A few seconds pass in comfortable silence as they just look at each other. Aziraphale doesn’t dare break this fragile spell with words; there’s been a reckoning, something’s clicked, even though he couldn’t pinpoint what exactly. There will be time to find out, he figures. Then Crowley wets a sponge, settles behind him again, places it carefully on his shoulder. “Is this alright?” He asks.

“Yes,” Aziraphale breathes out, and it really is alright, the discomfort long forgotten. Crowley washes every part of him that’s not underwater, with the sponge first, then with his hands; he pauses on Aziraphale's shoulder blades, his touch feather-like, reverent. “You’ve got freckles,” he whispers, his warm, close breath sending a shiver down Aziraphale’s spine.

“Angel kisses, they call them,” Aziraphale says, an attempt to break the tension.

It fails miserably. “And are they?” Crowley asks, not bitter as he probably thinks he sounds, just melancholic.

Aziraphale turns his head just enough to see Crowley in the corner of his eye. He reaches for Crowley’s hand, finds it, holds it. “No,” he says, stroking it lightly.

Crowley clears his throat, holds more tightly onto Aziraphale’s shoulder with his free hand. “Right. Good.” He gives Aziraphale’s hand a small squeeze before he lets go. “Let’s get this stuff out of your hair.”

Crowley rinses everything off, stands up and hands Aziraphale a bathrobe. He turns on his feet, waits for Aziraphale to get it on. Aziraphale smiles. Crowley isn’t bothered by nudity, he is. Small, careful gestures like this from Crowley never cease to surprise him.

“I’m decent,” he says, purposely sounding like a stuck up, old fashioned lady. Crowley snorts and turns around, and is immediately all over him again, one hand on his shoulder and another inspecting his work.

“Looks good,” he mutters to himself, smugly. “Come sit, I’ll style it and dry it off.”

Aziraphale does as he’s told, feeling pleasantly sleepy and warm. Crowley’s putting something else in his hair, explaining things he isn’t trying too hard to follow. “Aloe vera gel, and then oil… and a bit of cream on the ends… a whole thing… method…” The next thing Aziraphale knows, Crowley’s turned on a strange hair dryer. “It’s a diffuser,” he says, at Aziraphale’s questioning look. “Good for curls.”

“Hmm.” Aziraphale doesn’t bother asking why. Crowley is acting all professional, but he is effectively petting his hair. Has been for a while. And Aziraphale didn’t expect it to have such a soporific effect. He just wants to lay his head somewhere and close his eyes. If it just so happens that the nearest semi-flat surface is Crowley’s hip, he can’t be blamed. If he needs to hold onto Crowley’s waist to balance himself, and to make things easier for Crowley, there’s no need to dwell on it. And if Crowley places a small kiss on the top of his still-damp hair, he’s going to pretend he hasn’t noticed.

It takes a while. He’s under the impression that his hair has been dry for a good fifteen minutes, and that Crowley is just dragging on for the sake of it. He doesn’t mind. Then Crowley turns the hair dryer off, asks, “you like it?”

Aziraphale disentangles himself from Crowley, stands up and looks into the mirror. Someone new is staring back at him. This stranger has a head of flawless golden ringlets, soft-looking but defined. He gapes and runs a hand through them in disbelief. It’s like touching cotton wool. “Crowley, it’s _perfect_!”

He turns around to face Crowley. “Feel it!”

Crowley obeys and tangles his fingers into his hair once again, careful not to ruin it. “I love it. Fire your barber, angel, I’ll be your personal hair stylist from now on.”

Aziraphale chuckles. “We have a deal.” A pause, a question to Crowley’s eyes, an answer found. “There’s no one I’d trust more.”

**Author's Note:**

> Me, thinking about lovingly washing my crush's hair: It's time to proJECT m'dudes
> 
> Anyway listen. Listen. Aziraphale needs affection.


End file.
